Dual Enrollment

Spanning the Border Between High School and College—And Reshaping the Landscape of Public Education

By Piedad F. Robertson

The most inhospitable terrain in America’s education system has always been the no man’s land between high school and college, which the vast majority of students were neither expected nor prepared to traverse.

But the structures, policies, and practices that have long served to narrow access to postsecondary education are slowly but steadily giving way.

In a growing number of states, improving the rigor and relevance of high school coursework has risen to the top of the education reform agenda. Initiatives range from raising graduation requirements, to aligning high school assessments with college-entrance and -placement tests, to abandoning the conventional three-track curriculum in favor of a single,...